Yakuza: Dead Souls review – zombie mafia

Sega’s hard boiled crime thriller suffers from a zombie apocalypse, as the producer of Binary Domain pits the undead against Japanese gangsters.

Yakuza: Dead Souls (PS3) â keeping zombie mania alive

Despite Japan’s proclivity for making and playing video games it generally doesn’t like them too violent or realistic. There are exceptions though and Yakuza has been a long-running favourite, even if it’s little known in the West. So there was great consternation when it seemed like a franchise known for its serious crime drama was going to end with a zombie apocalypse.It eventually became clear though that Dead Souls is just a spin-off, one that takes itself only relatively seriously and which doesn’t seem to be the series coda many initially took it for. Surly Japanese gangsters up against Resident Evil style zombies and monsters may be dismissed by some as typical Japanese absurdity, but it’s essentially exactly the same idea as Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Redemption.The plot is a simple as they come: zombies have turned up in the middle of a fictionalised Tokyo and the army has been unable to wipe them out. So they’ve done the next best thing and penned them in behind makeshift barricades. Oddly everyone on the other side seems to have decided this is acceptably safe and you’ll find them continuing to go about their business relatively normally.Obviously this makes no sense but it’s the only way the game can make sure it has some sort of connection to the series’ roots as a freeform action role-player, one filled to bursting with side quests and mini-games. Except this time it’s not bursting, it’s just comfortably full.Although the amount of nonsense distractions will still seem generous to newcomers to the series – with fully formed golf, bowling, and fishing games amongst the saner offerings – series regulars will be disappointed at the selection. But then who has time to visit a love hostess when there are zombies knocking at the door?

This immediately limits the game’s appeal and variety, but the storyline and characters are still good schlocky fun. The game doesn’t seem to care that one of the four characters – Ryuji Goda – died in Yakuza 2 and simply resurrects him with a giant machinegun for an arm. The other three are regular protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, eyepatch-sporting karaoke fanatic Goro Majima, and Yakuza 4’s Shun Akiyama.Although there’s a lot of stock plot twists, with betrayals and kidnappings galore, the main focus is of course the zombies. Although there are a few good scares the game is not a survival horror by any means. It’s really just a third person shooter, which is odd as previously the Yakuza games have featured very little in the way of gunplay and instead have earned their reputation with brutal street level fisticuffs.Perhaps that’s why producer Toshihiro Nagoshi decided on the whole zombie motif, because he wanted to experiment with sustained ranged combat in a Yakuza game. But sadly there’s very little nuance or variety to the action. Dead Souls was first released in Japan last summer and Nagoshi has since gone on to make the much more successful Binary Domain , and it’s easy to see this as a learning experience towards that.Unlike Dead Rising, which Dead Souls vaguely resembles at times, there’s relatively little variety in the weapons or the tactics you have to use them with. There’s a combination bullet time and quick time event special move and some mostly competent computer-controlled allies, but that’s really it. Beyond these basic mechanics there’s very little else to excite until the variety of cannon fodder enemies starts to increase towards the end of the game.Bar far the most successful aspect of Dead Souls is the boss fights. This was also a highlight of Binary Domain and Nagoshi clearly knows exactly how to exploit one of Japanese gaming’s traditional fortes. The bosses here are not just more imaginative to look at, from multi-storey monstrosities to giant tentacle monsters, but they’re just as interesting to fight.Dead Souls is an entertaining shooter but it’s one of the few games nowadays that you wish was considerably shorter than it is. The joke begins to wear out very quickly and since the story and side quests are only a shadow of the real Yakuza games there’s little to compensate for the one-note action.If the game had followed Undead Nightmare further, and been a modestly priced download, we would’ve recommended it almost unequivocally. But as it is it’s an expensive novelty that both Yakuza fans and ordinary gamers are likely to find frustrating in its limitations.It’s great that Nagoshi, and Japanese gaming in general, is discovering how to make good quality shooters but Binary Domain is already a significant step forward from this early learning experiment.In Short:An amusing enough side story but the novelty of pitting serious criminals against Resident Evil monsters don’t last nearly as long as the running time.Pros:Decent third person combat and some amusing characters and dialogue. Some really excellent boss battles.Cons:The amount and variety of extracurricular activities is much less than a regular Yakuza. The game runs out of ideas long before the final credits.Score:6/10Formats: PlayStation 3Price: £49.99Publisher: SegaDeveloper: Sega CS1 (aka Yakuza Studio)Release Date: 16th March 2012Age Rating: 18Video:Check out the Yakuza: Dead Souls trailer